Sheep farmer calls for Pakistan boycott

Pakistan should be permanently boycotted as a market for Australian live exports, a West Australian sheep farmer says.

Bob Ilffa, from the Wheatbelt town of Newdegate, made the comment as the industry braced for an ABC Four Corners program on the recent inhumane slaughter of about 22,000 Australian sheep in Pakistan on health concerns.

The sheep were in limbo for over a month after they were rejected in Bahrain, but further health fears in Pakistan led to them being brutally killed - in some cases buried alive - in two stages.

The culls came after repeated proof by independent veterinarians that the sheep were healthy.

The Fremantle-based exporter Wellard expressed shock when the second cull was ordered on October 20, despite promises from local authorities a day earlier that the remaining sheep would be slaughtered humanely.

The pledge came after the company agreed to drop a court injunction seeking to overturn the government-ordered cull.

Wellard immediately suspended exports to Pakistan, which had only ever been considered a contingent market.

Sheepmeat Council of Australia said it was an isolated, unusual turn of events that led to a totally unacceptable outcome.

But Mr Iffla went a step further, saying he would never send sheep to Pakistan again.

"There's no way my sheep will ever be going to Pakistan," he told AAP on Monday.

Mr Iffla said he was in agreement with animal liberationists in calling for the Pakistan market to be snubbed, but did not believe an end to live exports elsewhere was feasible, given the need among many nations to secure protein via imports.

He said he was extremely disappointed with the way the sheep had been killed, especially considering a modern abattoir was readily accessible.

Instead, the animals were clubbed and had their throats roughly slashed in a dusty feedlot.

"Pakistan has done the wrong thing by the industry," Mr Iffla said.

"It's absolutely appalling behaviour by the Pakistanis, who I don't believe we can continue to deal with (the country) because it's just going to wreck the whole live animal trade."

Mr Iffla said his sheep were currently breeding so another wave of lambs was on the way, but after that, he would rethink his business, producing less meat or even focusing on agriculture.

"I don't know where we're going," he said.

"I'm certainly thinking of changing my program to some degree because if we can't make the profit out of live sheep in the manner that we have been, we're going to have to diversify into other areas."

The Queensland Greens reiterated calls to ban live exports, saying it was not within Australia's power to control what happened to livestock once they were outside the country.

Greens Senator Lee Rhiannon wants the federal government to end the trade through the Live Animal Export (Slaughter) Prohibition Bill 2012, but that appears destined to fail in the Senate.

Labor senator Glenn Sterle last month said the Greens were suggesting that with abattoirs back in the north and a boxed meat market in place, everything would be "tickety-boo".

Mr Iffla also said Australia should stop providing aid to Pakistan because of the cull.